Wisconsin Congressman and 2012 GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan has been warning against citizen dependency on government.It's a Scott Walker refrain, too, as he and fellow taxpayer-paid careerist Ryan define and defend The American Dream which provides them privilege and paychecks. Said Walker:

While some measure compassion by how many programs the government can provide to those in need, we measure it by helping people no longer require the assistance of the government.

Yet officials in Indianapolis, the biggest city in GOP-run, red state Indiana, are ignoring the facts about irresponsible or lazy Americans by providing more free meals to school children.

It's something they picked up from Communist-run cities, like Dallas, and others.

How can kids grab hold of their bootstraps if they're busy sucking down a free carton of milk?

There is some stupid 'data' which I will cite below from the story about the food handouts - - numbers no doubt faked by the same kind of 'scientists' who hate free markets and sugary foods - - but people who know in their gut that it's all a bunch of hooey will dismiss the 'facts' as fast as you can say "childhood obesity."

The free meal program cuts down child hunger in low-income areas. A study of schools in Illinois, Kentucky, and Michigan that have guaranteed free lunches and breakfasts to all students shows that when meals became free, lunch participation rates increased dramatically, growing by 13 percent over two years.

The change in the number of students eating breakfast was even more striking: Breakfast participation in 2012 was nearly three times higher in schools that opted for the program than schools that did not. This is especially significant because studies show having breakfast is linked to motivation in school and academic success. Nationally, just half of students in the free and reduced lunch program eat breakfast at school, and three-quarters of the nation’s teachers say they have students who often come to school hungry.

By eliminating the application process for free or reduced lunches, the free lunch program also lifts the hurdle of paperwork for low-income families, especially for parents whose native language is not English.

And despite some concerns about the cost of making school lunches free for all students, making meals free can actually cut down on other costs. The bureaucracy associated with determining whether a child qualifies for free or reduced-price lunches can be complex and therefore expensive. And many reduced-price eligible students who use the meal program but still find it hard to pay for meals run up cafeteria debts that never get paid.

Their target - - the state constitutional water rights protection known as The Public Trust Doctrine, though the Walkerites, afraid to go straight at the constitution, are instead draining it less directly.Little wonder that big businesses, the super-rich, and modern day land barons in Wisconsin want to manipulate ground and surface waters for their own narrow and special interests.As I said, serious stewards, water advocates are needed here, and now.
One excellent source of information is Midwest Environmental Advocates, a public interest law firm.
Apply at your local town hall, common council, environmental organization and political campaign office.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

And one sportswriter dumps all over the team, the league and 'process' by which The Braves found a new stadium and site:

Amazing news out of Cobb County! The new Braves ballpark is a political shitstorm and a mockery of the democratic process. That's not the news. The news is just how transparent of a sham this all is. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

At a packed public meeting, county commissioners approved a series of seven legal agreements with the team, and several community agencies that will be involved in building, operating and paying for a new $622 million ballpark in the Cumberland Mall area. The meeting was over within two hours, and the commissioners approved the deals without questions or debate.

Remember when the City of Milwaukee needed $90 million+ to extend its water intake pipe farther into Lake Michigan and begin ozone disinfection treatment to make sure drinking water from the Milwaukee Water Works was free of cryptosporidium?

Milwaukee didn't run to the Congress for a handout, as Waukesha is doing - - Waukesha wants grants, mind you, not loans - - with the help of paid lobbyists to carry Waukesha's water in DC.

No - - Milwaukee funded the upgrades on its own.

But back to the Tea Party Republican Johnson's opposition to federal water funding.

Is it based on principle, or is it geographically or politically situational enough to keep Waukesha's bid afloat?

In February, the state’s Wolf Advisory Committee took a surprising stand against a controversial state program that compensates the owners of dogs killed by wolves while hunting other animals...

At the February meeting, committee member Al Lobner, president of the Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association, opposed ending the payments. Attendee Melanie Weberg, a semi-retired teacher, says Lobner warned the group, according to her notes, “This is not a threat; be careful of what you do or this could get ugly.” She considered it a threat.

At the committee’s next meeting, in late April, DNR administrator Kurt Thiede told members they should not be making recommendations that require statutory changes, like ending these payments.

Powerful bear hunting groups benefit from a unique WI program that pays them for hunting dogs lost to wolves during various hunts. They also back wolf killing quotas challenged as unsustainable by some conservationists, wolf advocates and scientists.

Wisconsin GOP Senator, clean water opponent and master of irrelevancy Ron Johnson was one of only seven US Senators to recently vote "nay"on federal funding for a host of water quality projects nationally, including cleaning up the Burnham Canal on Milwaukee's Southside.For the record:

Sen. Tammy Baldwin's office says the package will benefit the Neenah Foundry plant in Neenah, which makes drinking and wastewater infrastructure accessories and products. It also allows the City of Milwaukee to move forward on restoring the Burnham Canal and transforming it into a wetland. Other funds will go toward funding a Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to be shared by Duluth and Superior, Green Bay and Milwaukee...

Wisconsin Farm Bureau President Jim Holte says his group is pleased with the bill's passage because it encourages the sustainability of Wisconsin's agricultural export programs...

Meanwhile, only seven Senators voted against the legislation, including Wisconsin's Ron Johnson. He says there are a number of provisions in the bill that he liked, but said since the entire draft was lacked with 'adequate reform and an effective prioritization process' he could not support it.

"The important provisions did not outweigh the bill's serious flaws," Sen. Johnson said. "In addition to increasing government spending far in excess of the deal that President Obama and Congress agreed to in December, the bill did not adequately reform a broken system that fails to effectively prioritize federal spending and Army Corps of Engineers projects."

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Gov. Scott Walker's campaign may be negotiating with prosecutors as part of a secret investigation into the 2012 recall campaigns involving him and other candidates, according to an anonymously sourced opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal...

Until now, the newspaper's editorial page has defended Walker against what it says is an unconstitutional violation by prosecutors of his campaign's free speech rights. In Wednesday's editorial, the newspaper attacked Walker, alleging that his attorney was negotiating with prosecutors at a time when they are facing legal setbacks.

"Sounds like Mr. Walker has to decide whose side he's on — his own, or the larger principles he claims to represent," the editorial reads.

And it's at times like these when it helps to remember this Scott Walker famous/infamous line:

When he says he believes in government transparency, it's not just a campaign slogan, Walker said.

ShotSpotter: The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee rejected an attempt to restore $445,400 from a community policing grant for the Police Department's ShotSpotter program. Walker had not included the money in his budget.

Converting 247 acres of nearly-pristine woodland to a golf course requiring large amounts of water and fertilizer would raise a lot of issues about Sheboygan-area land use near and along Lake Michigan - - and the questions are already being raised locally - - so I expect we will be hearing more about this:

A golf course [Herbert] Kohler is planning to build on 247 acres of Kohler Co.-owned land just north of Kohler-Andrae State Park in Sheboygan County would meet all the requirements to host a U.S. Open, according to architect Pete Dye.

Much of the country is embracing a tolerant, welcoming approach to human relationships and same-sex marriage - - and thus to equal rights, too - - but the Wisconsin Supreme Court is looking backward.

It's more than possible that the US Supreme Court will overturn the state's constitutional ban on the matter, as it has done with other states' similar prohibitions, but what a lamentable position for a state with a corroded progressive tradition that still maintains Miss Forward as a symbol atop the State Capitol.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Had occasion twice this week to go to the Urban Ecology Center on the East side at the Milwaukee River, and just wanted to underscore how valuable and pleasurable are the building, grounds and trails.

Address; 1500 E. Park Place Milwaukee, WI 53211. 414-964-8505

I''ll bet there are few cities the size of Milwaukee with such a terrific institution - - now grown to include two additional facilities in the Menomonee Valley and Washington Park - - and simple, powerful mission:

MILWAUKEE, WI

Here's are updates on the student loan crisis and its growing significance in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race from Scot Ross, Executive Director, One Wisconsin Now.From OWN's website:

In Wisconsin the response to the crisis from Gov. Walker has been silence and indifference interspersed between the largest cuts to public education in state history and hiking UW System tuition to the tune of $200 million plus for students attending over his four-year term.

Meanwhile the Republican controlled legislature gave borrowers the opportunity to offer their support during public hearings on the Higher Ed, Lower Debt Act (Senate Bill 376 and Assembly Bill 498). But when it came time to count the votes, Republicans voted along party lines to keep the full legislature from having the opportunity to debate and vote on the bill.

The good news is there appears to be new hope on the horizon. Gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke has included some of the common sense solutions from the Higher Ed, Lower Debt Act in her newly released "Invest for Success" jobs plan.

Last week, welearned from two separate research teamsthat the ice sheet of West Antarctica, which comprises just one relatively small part of Antarctic ice overall but contains enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by some 10 or 11 feet, has been irrevocably destabilized. \

Scientists have long feared that of all the planet's great ice sheets, West Antarctica would be the first to go, because much of it is marine-based—the front edge of the ice sheet is bathing in increasingly warm water, which is melting it from beneath.

Then add in Greenland, also at risk, and you get more than twice as much sea level rise.Then...I guess you call Pat Sajak and say the puzzle has been solved.

Friday, May 23, 2014

The West Bend, Wisconsin State Senator, Kwanzaa-hating, caulking expert and misogynistic Tea Party candidate for the Congress of the still-united United States of America gets ink for his Congressional campaign by announcing a Memorial Day hold on campaigning. Though he will walk in a parade, he further announces.

On equal rights, public spending and moral example, you choose the leader:The ideologue, with public money to burn:

Madison — Anticipating the state could soon lose its attempt to uphold Wisconsin's gay marriage ban, Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen took the unusual step Friday of asking a federal judge to immediately block her own decision if she does strike down the ban.

Normally, lawyers wait until a judge enters a decision before asking for a stay. Van Hollen's motion seems to concede the state will lose the case, at least initially.

Pennsylvania's ban on gay marriage was overturned by a federal judge Tuesday in a decision that legalizes same-sex marriage throughout the Northeast. Pennsylvania's Attorney General Kathleen Kane says she won't appeal.

This is a moving feature piece in the NY Times about overcoming ethnic slurs in modern America.But as I asked the other day, and not for the first time - - why does the NFL tolerate and help market the name of its Washington DC pro football franchise that is racist slur against Native Americans.And why did the State of Wisconsin, with the signature of Gov. Scott Walker and the support of a majority of the Legislature, use the law to help local school districts retain images, logos and nicknames that degrade Native Americans?It's an appropriate topic to consider over the Memorial Day weekend, as Mike Wiggins Jr, the Bad River tribal chairman reason in a guest posting yesterday:

Trust responsibility puts forth a covenant between governments that recognizes the importance of homeland as a necessary foundation for existence. Drinking water, clean air and food are the driving forces that our homelands produce for the web of life, including citizens.

The United States interest thereby becomes the Bad River Tribal Nations and vice versa as it pertains to survival and health. Treaties and trust responsibility cement the formality of this mutualism between us.

Our anishinabe ogitchidaa (warriors, veterans) serve as a prime example of where these interests become one. During times of War, Native Americans always had the highest percentage of service per demographic group. In short, when the United States is threatened, Anishinabe Ogitchidaa have always been there in force.

Our veterans who serve believe in their Tribal Nations, believe in the United States and believe in freedom. Our veterans who sacrificed all believed in the possibility of a good long life for those they loved and ultimately a better World within their Nations...

Trust responsibility, the transfer of Spirit with the bigger U.S. Nation, and our Ogitchidaa…..tell me that the words “national interest” translate to the United States and the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

It is in everyone’s interest for our Nations to protect our homelands and our people's.

Here's a short course in how the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, (WisDOT), is wasting public highway dollars by the millions while ignoring safer and less-costly alternatives.Often these battles are fought in cities, where neighborhoods oppose expensive, polluting new Interstate highway lanes and ramps that overwhelm densely-populated areas.But the subject of today's guest post is the financial, environmental, legal and public safety mess known as the Highway J/164 expansion-and-boondoggle (map, here) - - a battle in the out-suburbs and exurban hills of Waukesha and Washington Counties west and northwest of Milwaukee County - - and it's getting more and more media attention.There have been some excellent accounts lately in The Capital Times, and the Shepherd Express.A coalition of groups, suburban homeowners and farmers firmly opposed WisDOT's plan and initial re-construction to widen miles of two-lane highway in the Highway 164/J corridor that runs north through Washington County off I-94 in Waukesha County into a piece of the Kettle Moraine.I've been posting their views since 2008.The expansion will also add a wide median (that's how you build-in capacity for even more lanes later) along with limited, inconvenient access points - - so the opponents followed the process and Civics 101 by asking the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission, (SEWRPC) - - a frequent WisDOT ally with an unelected board - - to reject the plan.But SEWRPC, as is its pattern, ignored the views of thousands of petition signers, and thus began WisDOT's spending and bulldozing - - and ongoing litigation, too. More history,here.It's a familiar story to Milwaukeeans who have had to fight the WisDOT/SEWRPC/road-builder alliance for years over similar highway expansion in the Marquette Interchange to serve suburban commuters.And now, as we speak, over the possible addition of more noise, pollution, lanes, ramps and elevated bridges in the narrow, urbanized I-94 corridor near Miller Park, the Story Hill neighborhood and three cemeteries there, too.Today is right day for this history lesson, as WisDOT has the entire SE Wisconsin region detoured, delayed, diverted and other disgusted with orange barrels illustrating the state's refusal to use the longest-lasting highway building materials, hence our Memorial Day weekend congestion.Jeff Gonyo leads the HJCJ Coalition; here is a first-hand account of what he, concerned citizens and the Waukesha Environmental Action League are facing:-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 1999, the Highway J Citizens Group, U.A. (HJCG) has been waging a strong, well-organized grassroots battle to stop the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s (WisDOT) repeated attempts to illegally and unnecessarily expand Highway 164 through Washington and Waukesha Counties. During the past five years, the HJCG (along with its co-plaintiff, the Waukesha County Environmental Action League) has scored four major victories as a result of these efforts.

In 2009 and 2010, the federal court twice rejected the Highway 164 expansion project mainly because the WisDOT had failed to fully consider environmental impacts and reasonable alternatives and did not hold a proper public hearing, and last year, after the HJCG and WEAL filed another federal court action, the Federal Highway Administration rescinded its prior approval of this highly-controversial project.

At a January 23, 2014 public hearing, a standing room only crowd of irate citizens, along with many organizations (from both sides of the political spectrum), again joined together to strongly speak out against the WisDOT’s latest “warmed-over” version of their previously-rejected Highway 164 expansion project.

In addition to the HJCG, this impressive list of organizations included the Waukesha County Environmental Action League, Scenic America, Citizens for Responsible Government, Endangered Species Coalition, Sierra Club, Milwaukee Riverkeeper, Wisconsin Metropolitan Audubon Society and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice. The 2014 Libertarian Candidate for Governor (Robert Burke) also submitted comments calling for the immediate cancellation of this project because it would waste over $16 million in tax money and jeopardize the private property rights of many area residents.

Because of this strong united opposition by both conservatives and environmentalists combined with several serious legal deficiencies identified by the HJCG’s attorneys, WisDOT now has been forced to delay the highway expansion plans for Highway 164 by another two years (until 2018).

Most disturbing here is the WisDOT’s adamant refusal to reduce Highway 164’s speed limit to 45 MPH which is a proven-effective, low-cost, easily-implemented and minimally-intrusive alternative to greatly improve traffic safety. According to proven, past experience, lowering Highway 164’s speed limit to 45 mph would reduce traffic accidents by nearly 80% (just like what happened back in 2000 when the speed limit was temporarily reduced to 45 mph for a five-month period). The full implementation of a 45 mph speed limit on Highway 164 would cost only $8,000 according to the WisDOT’s current cost estimates.

However, instead of implementing this simple, low-cost, and highly-effective speed limit reduction, the irresponsible WisDOT bureaucrats want to wastefully-spend over $16 million to make Highway 164 wider, faster, busier and even more dangerous for both area residents and travelers.

Lake Michigan

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What water, wetland protection is all about

"A little fill here and there may seem to be nothing to become excited about. But one fill, though comparatively inconsequential, may lead to another, and another, and before long a great body may be eaten away until it may no longer exist. Our navigable waters are a precious natural heritage, once gone, they disappear forever," wrote the Wisconsin Supreme Court in its 1960 opinion resolving Hixon v. PSC and buttressing The Public Trust Doctrine, Article IX of the Wisconsin State Constitution.

Banned in Milwaukee

The right, suburbanites say "No light rail for Milwaukee."

James Rowen's Bio

James Rowen, a writer and consultant, has worked for newspapers, and as the senior Mayoral staffer, in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. This blog began on 2/2/ 2007. Posts run also at various news sites, including The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's "Purple Wisconsin."